


Hope

by springsdandelion (writergirlie)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-17
Updated: 2012-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirlie/pseuds/springsdandelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss introduces Gale to her and Peeta's newborn daughter</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope

I’m not sure what to expect when Gale walks through the door.

 

 

It’s been a while since we’ve seen in each other in person, though we write often—notes that have gotten shorter over time as we find our lives diverging from one another’s. Peeta and I never really talked about his visit much beforehand; after my mother told us that Gale had sent word—I think he knew instinctively to send it through her, rather than tell us directly—that he wanted to pay his respects and see our new little girl, Peeta never once questioned whether we should let him come. It was just always understood that he would.

 

I’ve just finished nursing her when the knock comes. The door opens a crack and I see Peeta peek in, bearing a slightly mischievous grin and even more mischief in his voice when he asks if I’m “decent.”

 

“That depends,” I retort, and I see the glint of shared laughter in his eyes.

 

“Look at the pull this little one’s got already,” he says, as he pushes the door open a little further. I see Gale craning his neck over Peeta’s shoulder, giving me a tentative smile. “She’s got visitors traveling quite a distance to see her.”

 

He steps aside to let Gale come in, and I push myself up a little straighter in the bed with my free hand. The bedsprings protest immediately with a loud creak that startles my sleeping daughter, and my hand flies automatically to her head to stroke her and soothe her back into her slumber.

 

Peeta’s been promising to get us a new mattress for ages, but secretly, I think he enjoys the sound, reminding him of the weight of our bodies and the rhythm we’ve perfected over the years.

 

“Those sound like they need some greasing,” Gale says, with just enough suggestiveness to make me blush.  Behind him, Peeta fights a smile. 

 

Gale comes forward and gives me a benign kiss on the cheek. I look for signs of a flinch from Peeta, but nothing comes; he seems too preoccupied with staring at our daughter, that goofy smile he’s acquired since her birth already starting to tug at the corners of his lips. Maybe, I think, maybe he finally understands. And maybe when he looks at her, he sees that she’s the irrefutable proof that I chose him. Freely and willingly chose _him_.

 

Gale looks down, taking in the sight of this tiny human being in my arms. She’s awake now, eyes wide and trying to follow the noise all around her.

 

“So this is little Prim,” Gale says.

 

“Primrose is her _middle_ name,” I say softly. Like everyone else, Gale naturally assumed I would name my daughter after my sister, but I didn’t want to burden a child with that weight. The memories tinged with sadness and aching. I didn’t want my daughter to come to represent that for me.

 

“She looks exactly like you.”

 

And it’s true: already, there are little tufts of hair growing like soft moss on her head, dark like aged wood, and the pink flush of her cheeks is faint against the backdrop of olive skin.

 

“But she’s got Peeta’s eyes,” I say, as I stroke her cheek.

 

I’m so glad she does. I’ve spent too many years looking into my own in a mirror and seeing only pain and suffering. Bitterness. The hollow of loss and the trauma of battle. But I know when I look at this little one, when she looks up at me, there will be nothing but love and trust reflected in them.

 

The same things I see in her father’s eyes.

 

I hear a shuffling by the door. Peeta’s made his way there and gives me a nod, then says, “I think your mother needs help setting up lunch.” He looks over at Gale and looks for a moment as though he’s about to say something, but doesn’t. Instead he just smiles, then looks at me again and gives me a different kind of smile than the one he just gave, the one he reserves only for me.

 

 _Go on_ , it says. _You need to talk to him._

 

When the door shuts behind Peeta, Gale pulls over the rocker in the corner of the room and sits down. He leans over, forearms on his thighs, studying my daughter intently.

 

“Do you ever wonder… what our children might have looked like?”

 

The question is bold and it takes me by surprise. It’s not that I’m shocked he’s had the thought; it’s that he’s voiced it. After all this time. After all this distance that’s grown between us.

 

And I found myself reacting not in the way I once feared I might—not with wistful stirrings or longing for what might have been, but with gratitude that life led me down this path instead of the one I thought I would travel.

 

“Gale-”

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, standing up abruptly. “That was… I shouldn’t have-”  He turns on his heel and he looks as though he’s about to bolt for the door, but then he stops. And for a long time, he just stands there, until finally, he turns around.

 

“Sometimes,” he says softly, with such gentleness than I want to reach over and give his hand a squeeze, “I wonder… I can’t help but think that if the Capitol hadn’t interfered… if it hadn’t put you two together-”

 

“It may have put us together, but it also tore us apart.”

 

He looks back at me, and there’s that familiar pain in his eyes, the one I used to see whenever he would sit by me in silence after Peeta—in his broken state—would say something hurtful, and the thought of never having him back again, the boy who loved me so much and without condition for nearly all of our lives, would overwhelm me with sadness until I couldn't breathe.

 

“The Capitol has no power over any of us now,” I say. “It took me years to realize that. Sometimes I still have to remind myself. To remind myself that I’m nobody’s pawn anymore and I finally do get to make my own choices in life.”

 

“And you chose him.”

 

I look up at him, knowing he wishes I could disagree. But I can’t.

 

“I chose him.”

 

Silence settles in on us, and after a while, my daughter coos, wriggling in my arms.

 

Then Gale asks, “Are you happy?”

 

For a long time, I wasn’t sure if I could ever answer that question with a yes. If I could ever truly let go of everything that’s come before. But when the answer comes out, there’s no hesitation at all, and I know it’s because it’s true. I feel it in my bones.

 

“Yes.”

 

I look down at this baby—this child who, at less than a week old, already wields more power over me than the Capitol ever did, who managed to erase years of misgivings over ever bringing a new life into this frightening, unpredictable place the moment I laid eyes on her, who makes me feel everything her father brings out in me, but with a new depth and breadth and intensity that I can not possibly put into words.

 

Yes, I am happy.

 

“So… what did you name her?”

 

My mouth curves into a smile as I instinctively draw her into me, and her eyelids flutter shut before her breath slows into that easy rise and fall of sleep.

 

“Hope.” __


End file.
